Twenty-Nine

Julia

I’d saved Austin’s life.

That was what was important here.

If I hadn’t left, Dillon would not have stopped. He would have left Austin a bloody, dead pulp on the pavement. It had been bad enough, witnessing Dillon fuck him up, but dead? No, I couldn’t even fathom that.

We were in a nondescript pickup truck that I was sure he’d stolen. Adding grand theft auto to his record was nothing. I’d seen him jack a car he needed for the business. He never got caught. Not before I’d ratted him out at least.

And, if it wasn’t stolen, then he’d really gone to extreme lengths in setting up this Evan personality. That was even more terrifying. The premeditation. He’d planned this all out. Weaseled his way into my life and Austin’s life and Lubbock life so seamlessly. Instead of approaching me as soon as he’d gotten here, he’d subsumed himself into a whole new identity.

“Where are we going?” I asked, picking gravel out of my arm with a wince.

“Your apartment.”

I startled. “Why?”

“Got to pack up your shit. I know you want that jacket.”

I held back my shudder at the violation. In his twisted mind, he probably didn’t even think that he had done anything wrong. I was his. And that was all that mattered. It was all that had ever mattered to him. Not how I felt or what I wanted. Only his desires and obsessions. I just happened to be the person who had gotten stuck in the middle of his insanity.

So, I needed to tread very carefully around him. He thought I wanted to be here. I’d left freely. And I needed him to think that was the truth.

“I love that jacket.”

“I know,” he said.

We pulled up to my apartment. He hopped out first and met me on the other side. “Come on. Let’s make this quick.”

I nodded and then hurried for the front door. Okay, I could do this. I could figure out a way around this. A stop at my apartment meant that I had a chance to escape this. A chance to get away. I needed to focus on that now. I’d saved Austin. No one was coming to save me. I had to save myself. As always.

Dillon grabbed my purse before I could dig through it, and he removed my keys. I longingly looked at my purse for a second before turning away. My phone was in that purse. He had to know that I wanted it. Maybe he even guessed I’d been planning to call the cops.

He slid the key into the lock and opened each of them individually. Not that they had done me much good in the end. Nothing had kept Dillon out of my life.

He snagged my wrist hard enough that bones ground together. I was careful not to cry out. He hated that, and it set him off. Most things did. Then, he tugged me inside and closed and locked the door behind us.

“Nice flowers,” he said, grinning at the lilies he’d sent me, still on the counter.

I hadn’t been home since I realized they weren’t from Austin.

“Do you know how long I’ve been thinking about this moment?”

“No,” I whispered, stepping back once.

“Years. But planning? I’ve been planning for months. I had to find you first, of course. Changing your name?” He laughed, but it held only madness. “Changing your name was smart. It made my game a little harder. But I found you. I thought, when you dumped that first guy, that it was our time. I knew it was coming to that, so I snuck over and took your jacket. I thought I’d surprise you. But then…then it didn’t go as planned. You started with the alcoholic.”

“Dillon,” I pleaded. I knew he liked to hear himself talk. The mastermind behind all of his plots. But I didn’t want to know. I really didn’t want to know how he’d infiltrated my life so easily.

“Right. Packing.”

He turned to face me, and I swallowed. The full weight of his attention was never a good place to be.

“Come here.”

I took a step forward, toward him. His blue eyes critically assessed me. He gently slipped my red hair off my shoulders. I tensed. When he was gentle, I knew it was going to be worse. Much worse. He grabbed my hair at the bottom and then wound it around his hand until it was in a tight fist.

“You could never be with anyone else but me, Jules.”

“I know,” I said hoarsely.

His grip on my hair tightened, angling my head backward so that I stared up at him.

“Ever.”

“Yes.”

Harder. I felt some of the hair pulling from the roots. Tears came to my eyes. He was hurting me. All that time I’d spent learning to protect myself, and still, he was hurting me.

“Don’t forget it again,” he said.

“I won’t,” I gasped out.

Then, he smiled a chilling smile and firmly pressed his lips against mine. I knew resisting him would only mean something bad for me, and he already had the control. Swallowing back the bile rising in my throat, I opened my lips to him. He kissed me with the ferocity that came from a three-year absence. I felt nothing. Not a thing in his lips. Once, he’d been my world. I would have given anything for any kind of reaction from him.

But, now, I hated him. Fuck, I hate him! For everything he’d done to me and all the pain he’d caused. For the fear I couldn’t escape. For forcing me…into everything.

“Let’s go,” he said, shoving me off of him.

My hand went to my head. I winced at the tender touch. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Dillon nodded his head toward the bedroom, and I anxiously entered ahead of him. He shoved me into the closet and pulled out a suitcase. He knew exactly where it was.

“Pack,” he said.

“Dillon?” I said in that soft, submissive voice I knew he loved. “Do you think you could get me something to clean up my cuts and maybe some ibuprofen?” I carefully met his eyes.

“On one condition.”

“What’s that?”

“Let me see it,” he said.

I was frozen. “See what?”

“My name.”

Fuck. Oh, fuck.

When I was twenty, Dillon had convinced me to get his name tattooed on my body. He’d said it was more permanent than marriage. A fucking piece of paper didn’t mean shit to him. He’d already owned me. Putting a permanent reminder on me had just sealed the deal.

But the first thing I’d done when I got out was, I’d found the best fucking tattoo artist in the state of Ohio to tattoo over it. Dillon was right. It had been a constant fucking reminder of him. And I’d wanted it gone.

My hands were shaking when I slid up the front of my dress and showed him the navy-blue thong I wore underneath. I tugged the material down just an inch and showed him the delicate flowers and vines that covered up his name and wrapped around my hip. He could only see half of the masterpiece that started at my hip, snaked up my ribs, across the outside of my breast, and up to my shoulder.

He knelt before me and traced his finger over the sensitive skin where he’d insisted I get tattooed.

“We’ll have to fix this,” he said. He leaned forward and nipped at the skin.

“We’ll do it when we get home,” I said, forcing excitement into my voice.

He grinned. “Finish packing.”

I nodded and started haphazardly throwing clothes into the suitcase. But, as soon as he left the closet, I bolted for my safe. It was my only chance. I had to try for it. I didn’t know how much time I had or how familiar he was with my bathroom and where the medical supplies were. But I had at least a minute, maybe two if I was lucky.

I typed in the combination on the lock. I held my breath as it clicked open, and then I was in a race against time. I would not be a victim. Not with all the time I had spent at the shooting range. Not with all the time I had spent becoming a new person and getting away from Dillon. I was not going back to Ohio, to that life and that person. No way in hell.

I grabbed my Glock out of the case. My fingers didn’t fumble. I didn’t hesitate. I ejected the empty magazine, loaded bullets as efficiently as I had practiced time and time again at the range, reinserted the magazine, and pulled the slide back to chamber a round.

“Jules, I didn’t find the ibuprofen,” Dillon said as he entered the closet.

I whirled around and held the gun level with his chest. Bigger target. I could hit his head, but if I only got off one shot, I wanted to make sure I didn’t fucking miss.

“What the hell are you doing?” he demanded.

He was angry. Fiery fucking angry. Ballistic, going-to-kill-me kind of crazy angry.

“Dillon, why don’t you back the fuck up right the fuck now?”

“Jules,” he said, as if he could reason with me.

“Now! Out of my closet, out of my bedroom, out of my fucking apartment.”

“Think about what you’re doing.”

“Don’t give me a reason to use this.”

“You’re making a huge mistake,” he growled low and deadly.

But I was the one with the gun.

“You were the one who made a mistake when you came here.”

“Jules, just put the gun down. Don’t do anything fucking stupid.” Dillon took a step toward me.

“Don’t come any closer,” I snarled.

“You’re not going to shoot me,” he said, taking another step forward.

“I have every right to shoot you right now, Dillon. And, if you’ve been watching me as closely as it seems, then you know I know how. I won’t miss. Now, step back!”

He took one more step toward me. He was almost close enough to grab the gun if he wanted to. I couldn’t let that happen. This was my only fucking chance. I aimed and fired at his foot. He jumped backward just in time to miss me shooting him.

“I said, back the fuck up.”

Dillon reassessed me. I didn’t know who the fuck he’d thought he was dealing with this whole time. But I was not the stupid girl he’d manipulated. Maybe he’d thought, because I’d ended up with an addict, that not much had changed. Maybe he’d only seen as much as he wanted to see. But he was seeing me for who I really was now.

Finally, as if he realized he’d lost the edge, he stepped backward, out of the closet. I followed him at the exact same pace. He never turned his back on me. He watched me, as I’d seen him watch many opponents in the past.

“You know this isn’t over, Jules. The next time I find you, you won’t have your little toy. We will be together.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I spat. All that confidence had returned to me while I held the only thing keeping me from a miserable existence.

We made it out of the bedroom and to the front door.

“And, if I can’t have you, Jules, then no one can have you. I’d rather kill you myself than see you with that asshole.”

I shivered at the intensity of his words. He really believed it. He really believed that, the next time he saw me, if I didn’t go with him, he’d kill me.

“I hope you burn in hell,” I told him.

Dillon shot me a cocky grin. He liked that he’d gotten under my skin. He liked knowing that, anywhere I went, I’d be thinking about him, wondering if he’d show up, wondering if he’d kill me.

He had to turn to slide the locks and open the door.

“I will never be yours, Dillon,” I told him when he was finally on the other side of the door. “And I’m not afraid of you. If I see you again, I won’t fire a warning shot.”

“Big threats, Jules.”

“Not a threat,” I said. “A promise.”

I slammed the door in Dillon’s face and hastily locked the place back up, not that I felt safe here anymore. He’d been here. He’d been inside. Every inch of my safe space had been violated.

My knees gave out, and I sank to the floor with my back against the door. All the strength I’d held on to, to face Dillon left me. The hand holding the gun was shaking so violently, I had to put the gun down.

I’d fired it. Oh, fuck, I’d actually fired it.

My breaths started coming out in short gasps right before I burst into tears. What the hell am I supposed to do now?